AFC Telford United 4 Altrincham 3: Stenson's stunners light up the Seah Stadium

Telford's refusal to believe this tie was beyond them ultimately helped engineer a big swing in momentum, enough to defeat higher-level opponents and advance to the fourth round for the first time since they reached the semi-finals in 2018/19.

They didn’t make life easy for themselves. The Bucks were punished for a lukewarm first-half display, with Jimmy Knowles plundering two clinically-taken goals as Altrincham dictated the tie.

But substitutes Adan George and Jimmy Armson netted either side of an Ollie Crankshaw goal that could have been decisive were the Bucks a less spirited side. Armson lit the fuse, and Matty Stenson lobbed in two sticks of dynamite to detonate the Robins' hopes of progressing.

The first half belonged to the Robins and they led after just six minutes, with a goal of simplicity. Lucas Weaver’s push and run past Dylan Allen-Hadley took him to the goal-line, and Knowles barely took the momentum off the ball with his first touch before spinning to his right and placing a low left-footer into Josh Gracey’s bottom-right corner.

Gracey was keeping his side afloat, producing an excellent stop to deny Weaver and turning aside another sharp Knowles effort. No-one could doubt who was in charge of affairs.

The Bucks then had to contend with the loss of Allen-Hadley, who appeared to be caught unintentionally on the back of the head by Jake Cooper’s elbow as the centre-half jumped for a header that Allen-Hadley ducked out of.

That was unfortunate, but what followed was entirely avoidable. After a lengthy stoppage, it was clear Allen-Hadley would need to be replaced, but Adan George, Wilkin’s choice to replace him, wasn’t ready, having left his shirt in the dressing room.

Hurried dashes to retrieve the garment saw the game resume with the Bucks a player short, and after Gracey pushed aside full-back Tylor Golden’s attempt to lift the ball over him, Weaver tucked the ball back to Knowles from the right; the striker’s spin and shot on his right foot flew high into the net to Gracey’s left.

George eventually replaced Allen-Hadley, and the Bucks survived until the break, but Wilkin tore a strip off his team collectively at the interval, fuming at their lack of preparedness.

The Bucks sought to redress the situation. Rhys Hilton was replaced by Jordan Cranston, who dropped back into his regular left-back role, freeing Jamie Meddows to play further forward on the same side.

The 4-3-3 formation that has served the Bucks well was also changed, a 4-4-2 accommodating both Stenson and George.

Within eight minutes of the restart, the two strikers combined to create a goal for George. Captain Alex Fletcher started it, winning possession and carrying the ball into traffic before finding Stenson; his turn and nudge between Cooper and Lewis Baines was an invitation for George to show his pace, and he ran on to the pass, drew out goalkeeper Luke Hutchinson and then dinked the ball over him from the right of the box to cut the deficit.

Given something to get behind, the home crowd responded, and their urgings lifted the players - Stenson had a shot from 18 yards deflected over before a bicycle kick from Cawthorne was cleared off the line and another from George hacked away inside the six-yard box. Khanya Leshabela also had a goal ruled out by the referee's whistle for a foul.

The Robins had been under the hammer, but after 68 minutes they used a rare foray into the Bucks’ half to grab what they must have thought would be the decisive goal. Crankshaw was released on the left, and as the Bucks backpedalled, he cut in, shot low and saw his effort deflected, beating a wrong-footed Gracey for the visitors’ third.

The Bucks had little to lose, and Remi Walker, a more peripheral figure than usual, was replaced by Jimmy Armson. The veteran midfielder, whose most notable contribution to the campaign to date was in goal against Peterborough Sports, lit the fuse on an incredible climax to the contest as he met Cranston’s near-post corner with a perfectly-timed run and leap.

Exactly 20 seconds elapsed between the restart and the Bucks’ equaliser. A Robins player’s unwise decision to try to run the ball into space saw him muscled off it by a fired-up Stenson, who advanced on a panicking defence and smashed an unstoppable shot into Hutchinson’s bottom-right corner from the 18-yard line. Pandemonium ensued.

Stenson’s goal took him into the outright lead as the Bucks’ AFC-era leading goalscorer, with 57 goals in 99 matches, but he wasn't done yet.

In the second of seven additional minutes, he once again went hunting the ball and was too much of a physical presence for Robins substitute Charlie Kirk.

Kirk claimed the foul, Stenson claimed the ball, and as he bore diagonally in from the right, swayed to his left before bending an unstoppable finish into Hutchinson’s top-right corner.

More bedlam followed, and Robins’ boss Neil Gibson was shown a red card for protesting too vehemently about the challenge on Kirk to the fourth official.

The ball was to find the net once more, but Knowles was denied an equaliser and his a hat-trick by the offside flag - and the final whistle brought a release of joy, exultation and disbelief, who could barely believe what they had witnessed.

AFC Telford United (4-3-3): Gracey, Dyer, Meddows, Piggott, Cawthorne, Fletcher, Walker (Armson 70), Leshabela (Williams 90), Hilton (Cranston 46), Stenson, Allen-Hadley (George 38). Subs not used: Fridye-Harper, Ikpakwu, Lawal.